All posts tagged: Plasma

How plasma propulsion facilitates science and exploration at NASA

How plasma propulsion facilitates science and exploration at NASA

Published by skeptic

The Innovation Platform Editor Georgie Purcell spoke with NASA’s John W Dankanich to find out how the space agency is using plasma propulsion to improve its missions. Plasma propulsion is an advanced form of electric space propulsion that uses electric and magnetic fields to ionise a propellant into plasma – a charged gas of electrons and ions – which is then accelerated to extremely high velocities, far exceeding chemical rockets. This solution offers a range of benefits for space missions, including increased efficiency and reduced costs. NASA has utilised plasma technologies for a variety of activities and missions in its history and is continuing to do so in an effort to optimise efficiency, cost effectiveness, and capability. To learn more about the role of plasma propulsion within NASA’s work, Georgie Purcell spoke with John W Dankanich, In-Space Transportation Systems Capability Lead at NASA. Can you identify some of the key uses of plasma propulsion within NASA’s missions? Plasma propulsion, or what we generally refer to as ‘electric propulsion’ (EP), encompasses a diverse set of propulsion …

When KaOS Linux dropped KDE Plasma, I worried – now I’m loving the new default desktop

When KaOS Linux dropped KDE Plasma, I worried – now I’m loving the new default desktop

Published by skeptic

Screenshot by Jack Wallen/ZDNET Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET’s key takeaways KaOS Linux no longer defaults to KDE Plasma. In Plasma’s place is the scrollable tiling Niri. KaOS is free to install and use. Over the years, I’ve watched Linux distributions make all sorts of changes — some that made sense and some that didn’t. So when I read that KaOS was dropping the KDE Plasma desktop in favor of Niri (which I’d never heard of), I thought, “Hoo boy, this marks the beginning of the end.” I was wrong. Niri is actually pretty cool. Also: After 30 years with Linux, I switched it for Windows 11 – and found 9 serious problems What is KaOS? KaOS, according to the developer’s website, is a “rolling and transparent distribution for the modern desktop, built from scratch with a very specific focus — focus on one DE (desktop environment), one toolkit (Qt), one architecture (x86_64).” That DE is Niri, a scrollable, tiling compositor. Unlike most tiling window managers, Niri tiles all …

More investment in US fusion and plasma technologies needed

More investment in US fusion and plasma technologies needed

Published by skeptic

A new report sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recommends increased investment in America’s fusion diagnostic capabilities to speed up the delivery of commercial fusion power plants. As part of the DOE’s Basic Research Needs Workshop on Measurement Innovation, experts from academia, private industry, and national laboratories such as PPPL identified the critical diagnostics and measurement technologies needed to advance US leadership in fusion energy and plasma technologies. The workshop supported the goals outlined in the DOE’s Fusion Science & Technology Roadmap, which “targets actions and milestones out to the mid-2030s, providing the scientific and technological foundation to support a competitive US fusion energy industry.” Luis Delgado-Aparicio, head of advanced projects at PPPL, who chaired the workshop, explained: “Measurement innovations have led and will continue to lead to scientific and engineering breakthroughs in plasma science and technology activities supported by the DOE’s Fusion Energy Sciences programme, especially fusion energy sciences. “This new report provides substantive findings across seven key areas of fusion and plasma technologies.” Strengthening US leadership in fusion and plasma technologies …

Want your Linux looking more like Windows? KDE Plasma makes it easy – here’s how

Want your Linux looking more like Windows? KDE Plasma makes it easy – here’s how

Published by skeptic

I do love some transparency. Jack Wallen/ZDNET Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET’s key takeaways KDE Plasma can be highly customized. If you want KDE Plasma to look like Windows 11, you can. It only takes the addition of a theme and a widget to make this work. KDE Plasma is a remarkably customizable desktop environment. On top of being highly flexible, it’s also fast and stable, so it would make perfect sense why you might want to migrate from Windows to a KDE Plasma-powered desktop distribution. But if you want to carry over the look and feel of Windows 11, how do you do that? With a bit of tweaking.  Don’t worry, it’s not nearly as hard as you might think it is; you just have to know where to look, what to add, and how to set it up. Changing the theme What you’ll need: I’ll demonstrate this via KDE Neon, which includes the most recent release of the KDE Plasma desktop.  First, open System Settings and go to Colors …

London mother urges plasma donations after daughter treated for rare childhood disease

London mother urges plasma donations after daughter treated for rare childhood disease

Published by Sam Flores

“The defining symptom of Kawasaki disease is a persistent fever alongside other symptoms – which may or may not be present, or might come and go rapidly – such as red, dry and cracked lips, a sore mouth or ‘strawberry tongue’, a rash, irritability, swollen glands in the neck, red and swollen fingers and toes and red bloodshot eyes. Source link

Chinese Fusion Reactor Achieves Plasma Density Previously Thought to Be Impossible

Chinese Fusion Reactor Achieves Plasma Density Previously Thought to Be Impossible

Published by José Betancourt

Huang Bohan / Xinhua via Getty Images Scientists at China’s Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) program rang in the new year with a stunning accomplishment: empirical evidence that they used the device to achieve nuclear plasma densities once thought to be beyond human capabilities. On January 1, researchers at the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science at the Chinese Academy of Sciences published a wild new study in the journal Science Advances. In it, the team details the way they used EAST — which has memorably been dubbed China’s “artificial sun” — to achieve a plasma density far higher than previous limits. Nuclear fusion is the process by which two atomic nuclei combine to form a single, heavier nucleus, resulting in a huge release of energy. Because of its potential to produce limitless clean energy, scientists the world over have sought ways to use nuclear fusion as a viable power source. One difficulty, however, is that all atomic nuclei have a positive charge, meaning they’re naturally repulsed by each other — think two magnets with opposite …